Being Sensible
by ixwin
Summary: Lupin writes a love letter. Inspired by the scene in the film of PoA where Lupin describes Lily & James. Heavy on the angst. RemusSirius. PG-13. Spoilers to OOtP. NOW UPDATED WITH NEW SCENE.


I fell in love with James first. The joy, the energy, the sheer gladness-to-be-alive of him. I was first dazzled, then smitten. He believed that nothing would hurt him and, for a time, it seemed he was right.   
  
He never loved me. I know that. Or, if he did, it was simply the easy affection of one good friend for another. If he loved any of us more than that, it was you. You two always had a mutual sympathy – the daredevils, the wild boys - which I never quite shared. Ironic, really, given what I was.  
  
I know this is an odd way to begin a love letter to you, Sirius, but I think you'll understand.  
  
I fell in love with Lily, too. Who could help it? She had a gift for seeing the best in people and, seeing themselves reflected in her eyes, they grew into what she believed them to be. I loved the person I became when I was around her. My caution, which seemed dull and fun-spoiling around you and James was transformed into wisdom and maturity when she was there. When the five of us were sitting around in the Gryffindor common room and you two were plotting something ever more outrageous, she'd look at me with one eyebrow raised, and I'd feel wonderful as the two of us attempted to point out the flaws in your plan to steal every single Slytherin scarf and tie them all to the Whomping Willow.  
  
Even poor, pitiful Peter blossomed under Lily's warm gaze. He lost the nervous cringe he habitually bore even around us, his three best friends, and revealed a dry sense of humour that we three other Marauders had never bothered to discover.  
  
It was obvious, too, that Lily was good for James. Better than I could ever have been. She stood up to him for a start. James needed someone who would tell him when he was being a prat, and we were all far too dazzled by him to do that.   
  
And, although perhaps James wasn't always good for Lily (and certainly wasn't always good to Lily), it was him that she loved. Not Peter, not you, not me, much as I would have liked it to be otherwise.  
  
I don't deny I had my fantasies, late at night in the privacy of my four-poster bed. James dying tragically, Lily distraught and sobbing in my arms, then looking at me with tear-stained eyes and gently kissing me, whispering "You're a good man, Remus". Or Lily dying, and James white-faced and stoical, until my gentle sympathy broke down his reserve, and he exploded in a violent rage, and then collapsed in a sobbing heap. My offering comfort to James in whatever form he needed it (and, yes, sometimes that was sex, but half the time I'd simply imagine holding him until he fell asleep). I was desperately ashamed of these fantasies, terrified that they revealed some inner werewolf delight in pain and death and destruction. Appalled, too, at my selfishness. I loved them both, for God's sake. How could I wish unhappiness on either of them?  
  
Then, one summer day, we were sitting by the lake, just you and I, tossing stones into the water in a half-hearted attempt to raise the giant squid, and talking. Gossiping, really, although we'd never have admitted to the term. Our main topic of conversation was of course the girls we knew. Who we liked, who we thought liked us, the sad lack of overlap between these categories. And, inevitably...  
  
"There's no-one else like Lily is there?" I said.  
  
"No," you agreed.   
  
Then, after a pause, you added "or like James."  
  
My eyes flickered to your face. It was carefully impassive, as you chucked another stone into the lake, but somehow I knew.   
  
It seems ridiculous to call that the moment I fell in love with you, but also strangely appropriate. Our lives seemed bound with those of the Potters (as they became). Just two planets orbiting their sun.   
  
Lily positively glowed when she learned we'd become a couple. James teased us mercilessly, but you were always ready with a comeback - after all, he and Lily were at least as soppy together as we were.  
  
I think the months that followed were the happiest of my life. That summer you came to stay with me at my parents' house in Wales, and we spent the days flying around the more isolated parts of the countryside. I'd sit behind you on your Nimbus 750 and you'd fly at your usual reckless pace - occasionally aiming straight at tree trunks, and swerving aside at the last minute, so I'd have to tighten my grip around your waist to be sure of not falling off.   
  
"You know what I want?" you shouted back to me one day.  
  
"What?"  
  
"A flying motorbike. That'd be fan_tas_tic!"  
  
The fact that I was completely unconvinced by the idea didn't dampen your enthusiasm one iota. And, to be honest, I wouldn't have had it any other way.  
  
We'd land in a field somewhere, and throw ourselves down into the knee-high grass and just lie there, our arms touching, gazing up at the clouds and talking until the sun was low in the sky. I'd never seen you so willing to be still. It was as if the summer heat had cast some sort of spell.   
  
I knew you hadn't exactly had a happy time of it at home - why else would you have moved in with James' family? - but it was only then that I started to learn what it had really been like for you. My heart ached for the lonely, confused little boy you must have been and for the part of you that would always be that boy, and I began to understand a little better where all the rebelliousness and boasting came from.  
  
I don't know how much my parents suspected back then. We shared a room, but then we always had when you'd come to visit before, whispering late into the night. Only now, as well as whispers, there were kisses, and soft gasps, and the touch of bare skin against bare skin in the heat of an August night and - oh Sirius - it felt _amazing_.  
  
And there was laughter too - so much laughter. I'd always presumed that sex was a solemn and serious business, but you were as playful in bed as you were out of it. Particularly first thing in the morning, before I was quite awake...  
  
I can't believe I'll never be woken by you again.   
  
For God's sake, Remus, you've evaded it quite long enough.  
  
I'll never be woken by you again because you're dead.  
  
Dead. There - I've said it.  
  
You're dead and I'm writing you a letter and it's ridiculous.  
  
I'm not big on self-pity. I can't afford to be. If I were going to spend my life dwelling on how unfair life had been to me, I might as well have just run off to a cave and died years ago.   
  
I tried, you know, when I heard that you'd been convicted and sent to Azkaban. Until that moment, I still held a desperate hope that the rumours were mistaken – that perhaps someone else had betrayed the Potters. I hoped that Dumbledore would pull some hitherto unseen evidence out of his hat at the last minute that proved your innocence. But it didn't happen, and I had faith – a naïve faith, in retrospect – in the justice system. I knew it was prejudiced against my kind, but to someone like you, a wizard from one of the old respected families, surely it would be fair. Surely it would not convict you unless you were guilty. I could not believe you would willingly betray those you loved, but perhaps He Who Must Not Be Named had access to a new, more powerful, more subtle version of the Imperius curse. Or perhaps your recklessness and bravado had finally just got the better of you – some plan that had gone horribly wrong. I was sad you hadn't shared it with me but I understood. In those dark days, everything was on a need-to-know basis.  
  
I spent three years living wild, welcoming the change when it came because at least when I was a werewolf I didn't feel pain. Hoping, each month, that I would be seen, and shot, and never wake to humanity again. But eventually, I realised how selfish I was being. There was a world out there that needed rebuilding, and I should be helping, not skulking in a cave somewhere. God knows, there were few enough of us left.   
  
So I buried my pain, and did what I could, what the world allowed me to do. I spent my time worrying about getting a roof over my head, some sort of work. They weren't pleasant concerns, but they kept my mind occupied, stopped me from dwelling on things.   
  
And then you came back, and.I remembered what happiness was, for the first time in over a decade. It wasn't perfect. Of course it wasn't. You'd been through eleven years of hell, and I never thought we'd just be able to pick up where we left off. The nightmares, the rages, the moments of sheer animal terror, caused by the oddest things. I hated to see you in those states, and I hated even more that I was helpless to do anything about them.   
  
But we were together. And we were starting to rebuild our life together. Grimmauld Place was an odd place to call home, but home it was.  
  
And after all that, to lose you _again_…  
  
I'm not big on self-pity, but for fuck's sake I think I have a right to some now.  
  
I don't believe in an afterlife. It's always seemed too convenient. There are ghosts, of course, but they're simply a shadow of the person who died - little more than what's captured in a photograph. But over the last few weeks, I've felt your presence around me, and I'm writing this - I suppose - just in case there's a you to hear it. I expect it's an illusion, some trick the brain has, allowing me to go slightly mad to save me from the greater madness and grief of knowing you're really gone. The sad thing is, I'd rather talk to you, knowing this, than any of the living people in the house. They've all been very kind – Arthur and Molly Weasley, Dumbledore, even Snape in his way. But they all seem so distant, as if they're speaking to me from behind a sheet of glass. I can't connect with anything.  
  
It's getting dark, and I can't face going downstairs to get fresh candles. Too many sympathetic faces. I could use Lumos, of course, but I can barely summon up the energy for the simplest spells these days.  
  
No doubt, I'll get over it again, like I did before. I can't be selfish forever – the need is greater now than it's ever been. And that's what I do, isn't it? I'm one of the good guys.   
  
I'm going to go to bed now, and imagine you walking into the room. Telling me that it was all a big mistake, of course you're not dead. And we'll hold each other tight and you'll kiss me and tell me that you'll never let me go and...  
  
I can't go on.  
  
Dammit, I swore I wouldn't start crying again. People will hear and they've got more important things to worry about than a shabby old werewolf who's lost the love of his life.  
  
If I cry into the pillow, at least they can pretend they haven't heard.  
  
Goodnight, Sirius.  
  
love you - always.  
  
Remus. 


End file.
